CHAPTER FOURTY-FIVE

SURROUNDED

"Don't just stand there, you idiots," the man with the graying brown hair, who turned out to be the leader of a group of assassins trying to take over the world, roared as he shakily heaved himself up from the ground. Rivulets of blood ran down the length of his arms and face from where pieces of glass had embedded themselves into his skin. Placing on hand on his knee to steady himself, he gave a death glare to ninja. "Get them!" As soon as he gave his men their order to attack, the unnamed leader of the assassins stood up straight, jumped out of the window, and made his getaway.

After receiving their orders, it was safe to say that all hell broke loose. The soldiers, who turned out to be highly trained assassins, attempted to herd them into the kitchen area. When the men started to close in on the ninja, they reacted quickly and started to fight back the best they could in closed quarters. While they fended off the assassins, they started to slowly make their way towards the broken windows and jump out, one by one, until they were all standing behind the shop, facing the woods.

In the end, it turned out to be a bad idea. They were surrounded by even more men in bulky black uniforms armed with even more guns. The men and women surrounding them started to take aim and began to fire. The ninja, not wanting to find out how it would feel to be shot, got out of the way and started to dodge the barrage of bullets or deflect them with chakra enhanced kunai.

To make matters even worse, there were three helicopters hovering just above the tree line, most likely carrying more men with loaded weapons, possibly snipers onboard, and other men in surveillance van or on motorcycles. Jade had to hold back a snort when she saw that the motorcycles were 'Ninja' motorcycles. She highly doubted that those motorcycles could keep up with an actual ninja.

Suddenly they were all blinded by spotlights being shined on them from above by the helicopters.

"What do we do now," Hinata gasped, deflecting a bullet that was aimed at her chest, her quiet voice just barely being heard over the engines of the vehicles and the helicopters' blades cutting the wind.

"We fight our way out of here," Kakashi answered her, taking charge of the situation. "But don't use anything too dangerous unless absolutely necessary. We don't want to try anything too risky, and wind up hurting one another. Also nothing to flashy. We don't need to draw any more attention to us than we already have."

"Let's kick some bad guy butt," Naruto and Kim shouted together, which really freaked everyone out. The two were a little too much alike at times. Jade was only happy that her dark haired best friend had finally broken out of her shell, and revealed the pearl that was hidden within.

"Let's avoid anything major, and just get out of here," Konan, being the voice of reason, stated. They had no idea what they were up against along with how many more assassins could be on the way. Hinata had previously confirmed that they were completely outnumbered, and despite them knowing the types of weapons they were facing, they were hardly able to keep up with the onslaught of bullets. Not to mention, the possibility of explosives or various types of gasses.

Naruto was about to start complaining when Nagato stepped forward, and grabbed his cousin by the arm before disappearing into the woods with the others hurriedly following after the Uzumaki duo. They were all head towards the same destination, the clearing deep within the woods, as bullets whizzed passed them.

When they finally reached the clearing, they soon realized their mistake. They had walked right in to a trap. The assassins knew they would try to avoid putting the lives of civilians in danger, and would try to escape into the woods, but they were prepared. They had more men hidden within the forest, which was out of Hinata's Byakugan's line of sight, waiting for the ninja to arrive. Once the ninja were in the woods, the men quickly surrounded them. The helicopters with their bright spotlights flew overhead, and the men on the motorcycles weaved through the trees trying to get closer.

They shinobi were, once again, surrounded, and quickly got back into that familiar circular formation, weapons at the ready.

"Where did Sasuke go," Hana asked frantically, worry heavily coating her voice. While everyone else was busy looking around for an escape route, she had looked around to check on everyone, and noticed that the youngest Uchiha was missing. The thought that the dark haired boy had been captured flashed through their minds, but they shrugged it off. He was Sasuke, and he would not let himself be so easily captured. Even if he had been captured, he would not have gone without putting up a fight.

Swoosh. Everyone, including the armed terrorists, snapped their heads up towards where the sound had come from. Standing between Kim and Naruto, was none other than a smirking Sasuke Uchiha.

"Bastard! Where the hell did you go," the dark haired boy's blond best friend shouted in outrage. "We thought you had been captured, dattebayo!"

"Hn, I'm not you, moron. I won't be so easily taken," Sasuke replied with a smirk.

'Foolish little brother, you should not underestimate your best friend. He's a lot harder to capture than one might think,' Itachi thought to himself. The other three Akatsuki members were thinking of something along the same lines, because they knew first hand that it was more than extremely difficult to capture the blond haired Jinchuriki.

The sunshine-haired boy fumed and was about to make a retort when the indigo haired girl, who was standing beside him, pinched the back of his upper arm. Naruto spun around with wide eyes to face the girl.

"Hina-chan that hurt, dattebayo," the Jinchuriki whined, as he grasped the back of his arm as if he was in unbearable pain. Crocodile tears were starting to gather at the corner of his eyes and his lower lip jutted outwards, completing the look of a child who had been told that he could not have the toy he wanted.

"S...Sorry Naruto-kun," the Hyuuga heiress fumbled over her words when she saw the, fake, hurt look on her beloved's face. She didn't know what had come over her, but she did know that she was just trying to prevent Naruto and Sasuke from getting into another one of their arguments, because if that had happened then they would really be in trouble. The two best friends would start by shooting insults at each other, then they would move on to a shouting match, after that they would start throwing a couple punches, and finally they would end up in a heated battle. None of that would be good considering the current situation that they all found themselves in.

Apparently, the shy girl had stayed too quiet for too long for the blond's liking, which caused her crush to get the wrong idea. Naruto started to panic, thinking that the dark haired girl was going to start crying. He didn't know what to do when a girl started to cry, but he felt that he should do something, considering it was his fault for making her cry.

"Aw... Hina-chan it's okay, 'ttebayo," the blond chirped as he slung an arm around the girl's shoulders and brought her in for a side-hug while resting his head on her shoulder. Hinata blushed prettily, and started to twiddle her pointer fingers while looking down at her feet, enjoying the feel of her crush's arms around her. The indigo haired girl had really come a long way since arriving in the different dimension. If Naruto had tried to utter a single word to her, she would have overheated and fainted, but not anymore. She had gotten to learn more about the boy than she could have ever wished, while at the same time he got to learn more about her.

"Is this really the time to be goofing off," Kakashi asked sardonically, snapping everyone's attention towards him. The Jonin had a point. They were all standing in the very same circle formation that they had stood in back inside the loft. The only difference being, they were outside in the clearing they used for training.

"Where did you go," Kim asked turning to face her younger brother, head was tilted to the side in confusion. Then a look of understanding crossed her face before it was replaced by a look of rage. "You dumbass! This is not the time to be taking bathroom breaks!"

"I didn't go to the bathroom," the duck-butt haired boy shouted back, a pout marring his features.

"Knock it off," Itachi ordered form where he was standing. When he realized that the two were not paying him any attention, and continued to argue, his left eye started to develop a twitch. In the blink of an eye, the eldest Uchiha was standing behind his so-called younger siblings with both of his hands balled in fists raised above their heads. He swiftly brought both fists down on their heads, causing them to clutch at their heads, and wince in pain. He then weaseled his way in between the two in an attempt to assure that they would not start a fight.

"Heh, what idiots," a random voice chuckled.

"They'll be pretty easy to take down," another voice called out excitedly. The others that were surrounding the group were starting to get anxious with excitement. They were shifting from foot to foot, getting ready to make their move.

"Yeah! All they've done is run away," another man added. "They're not as tough as they think."

"I think I'll have me a bit of fun with the pink haired one," one of the more of men called out. Sasuke narrowed his eyes in anger. Before anyone could actually comprehend what was happening, the youngest Uchiha was standing behind the crass man with his Kusanagi raised in the air, blood slowly dripping off the blade of the sword. The man who had made the racy comment, slowly fell to his knees as blood gushed out of the wound on his neck before finally hitting the ground face first where a puddle of his own blood formed around his corpse.

Seeing their comrade get cut down right before their eyes, caused the assassins to be stunned into stillness. After that small display of the ninja's true powers, the assassins finally started to see them as a threat and stopped underestimating them. They hadn't even seen the boy move. Yet somehow, he had managed to get behind them and take out one of their men silently. If it had not been for the man's startled cry or the tangy scent of rust and salt lingering in the air, they would have never had noticed anything was amiss.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was just as shocked, albeit for completely different reasons, but still shocked nonetheless. After a second of thought, he realized that it was only on reflex that he jumped out to defend his former pink haired teammate. While they were still a team, he had protected her and saved her enough times for it to become second nature to him. Some habits really did die hard.

Lowering his sword, he glanced up and he didn't like the smirks on his older siblings' faces. The dark haired boy quickly body flickered back over to where the group was and stood next to his blond haired best friend, who looked a little peeved that he wasn't the one to make the first move, and look like a total badass while doing so.

Finally, the assassins seem to snap out of their daze. They could no longer afford to underestimate the group of preteens. There had to be a reason why their leader wanted them, and if they can all move like that boy with the odd hairstyle, then they were not to be taken lightly. Maybe once they had successfully captured the ninja, they would be able to learn the things that they did. If that were the case, then they would surely become powerful.

Looks of excitement and glee were all that could be seen on the faces of the men, before their expressions turned deadly. They were out for blood, and they did not care that their comrade laid dead in a puddle of his own blood. All they wanted was to capture the ninja in hopes of obtaining their powers. Even though they didn't know all of what the ninja were capable of, they didn't care. Their lust for unimaginable power grew.

Weapons all around were lifted up and aimed at the group that was standing in a circle formation in the center of the clearing.

"Okay guys," Ren shouted out to the others, gaining their attention in hopes of taking control of the situation. He then reached both hands to the waistband of his pants and pulled out two identical handguns. The rest of the group followed the man's lead and reached out for weapons of their own. With a gun in each hand, Ren started to fire off at the enemy as he shouted orders to the others.